Many of the boys Dwight brought to the Wells Street Mission lived in the Sands, an area near Lake Michigan. The tumbledown shacks were crowded with German and Irish immigrants, many of whom suffered from the ravages of joblessness and whiskey. Their poverty was extreme.
Some of the first boys Dwight brought to the mission had dropped out a short time later due to lack of interest. Dwight’s traveling schedule always affected the boys’ attendance, and after he was gone a few weeks, they simply stopped coming.
As Dwight rode the train on his various travels, he thought repeatedly about the boys like Jimmy Sexton and Tom Stevens who existed in ignorance and poverty. Why doesn’t the church reach out to the adults in these areas? he wondered. Of course, Dwight also realized that the boys didn’t care for the formality and rote learning of the Wells Street Mission. He could hardly blame them—he never cared much for it either.
“HOW’D YOU BOYS LIKE TO HELP US START A MISSION SUNDAY SCHOOL?”
Back in Chicago in 1858, Dwight had an idea! He and an architect friend obtained an abandoned freight car on North State Street. After rounding up several boys, Dwight asked them, “How’d you boys like to help us start a mission Sunday school?”
Jimmy Sexton piped up excitedly: “That would be great! We’d be like co-partners, wouldn’t we? And we’d have a chance to be the boss sometimes, too, wouldn’t we?”
The following Sunday, the new mission got underway amid shouts and cheers from numerous boys. A young businessman with a fine voice was brought in to lead the music, but the boys needed to be taught most of the hymns.
Before long, as the boys brought other friends to the new mission, the car became so jam-packed, it nearly burst at the seams. When some of Dwight’s friends learned of the crowded conditions, they wanted to help, so they obtained a one-and-a-half-story house on Michigan Street for the mission. The house was a former saloon that was now in disuse; Dwight used the large front room and a store in the back.
The number of boys continued to increase. Sometimes when Dwight was in town during the week, he would have extra meetings, which he conducted himself. On one occasion, a Thanksgiving Day service, Dwight had invited his friend G. S. F. Savage to join him. When Mr. Savage arrived, he found the place dark. He recalled later: “There were no gas fixtures in the house, and he was trying to light it with a half-dozen candles, but the darkness had rather the best of it. I found him with a candle in one hand and a Bible in the other, and a child on his knee who he was trying to teach.”
Mr. Savage added: “There were twenty-five or thirty children in all, and they were as sorry a lot of little ragamuffins as could have been found in Chicago.” But to Dwight, these children were precious jewels, and they made up the mission to which God had called him.
Increasingly, Dwight found himself hindered from the work he loved by his traveling job. He would be gone for nearly a month and missed three out of every four Sundays in Chicago, but he felt loyal to his employer, Mr. Henderson, for he treated Dwight as he would his own son.
Another reason Dwight wished to remain in Chicago was Emma. He visited the Revell house frequently, and Emma’s little nine-year-old brother, Fleming, would hide behind the stove and listen to their conversation. He was usually disappointed because Dwight generally brought at least two other young men with him since Emma had two sisters, Anna and Sarah.
If it is true that opposites attract, the love between Emma and Dwight can be easily explained. Emma earned her living as a teacher, and though her father never made much money, their Washington Street home displayed culture and hospitality and reflected their English roots.
IF IT IS TRUE THAT OPPOSITES ATTRACT, THE LOVE BETWEEN EMMA AND DWIGHT CAN BE EASILY EXPLAINED.
While Dwight seemed charged with health and vigor, Emma suffered from asthma and headaches. Shy and retiring, Emma enjoyed being around the extroverted Dwight. He was impulsive, outspoken, domineering, and had little education. Emma was intensely conventional, conservative, far better educated, fond of reading, possessed with discriminating taste, and was self-effacing. Yet they seemed made for each other, and Dwight fell head over heels in love with her.
Dwight’s life took another turn when his employer died suddenly in late 1858. Because of a difference of opinion with the new management, Dwight left the firm, going with Buell, Hill, and Granger. Several months later, Mrs. Henderson pleaded with Dwight to help them get rid of the incompetent administration of Henderson’s estate, to collect the debts, and to wind up the estate. Although he felt honored, Dwight felt, “I was not old enough to take such an estate on my shoulders but they insisted I was.” He didn’t comply with Mrs. Henderson’s wishes, however. Part of the reason lay in his increasing disregard for business.
Once more, the Sunday school mission outgrew its facilities, and Dwight’s friends helped him obtain larger quarters. The lawyer, Mr. King, told another friend, “I became so greatly impressed with the great work, and Moody’s earnestness and devotion to it convinced me that I in my humble way should do something similar.” So King took Moody to the former mayor of Chicago, “Long” John Wentworth. Through Wentworth’s influence, Dwight secured another building for the mission, a hall built on the site of the old North Market.
The meeting room upstairs had a huge grimy hall with blackened walls and ceiling. It was bare and uninviting. The area underneath was occupied with the local fire truck, and periodically the school session would be interrupted by firemen harnessing their horses, a puffing engine boiler being stoked to get up steam and pump the hose, and the noise of clanging bells as the horses galloped away with the fire engine.
On Saturday nights the German society held dances in the North Market hall. They would pile up the school chairs and other materials in a heap, and they left the floor a mess of cigar stubs, ashes, beer puddles, and papers. Since Dwight refused to employ labor on Sunday, he would do the cleaning himself no matter how late he returned from traveling Saturday night. Jimmy Sexton had been assigned to help Dwight. He felt the work was “as dirty, disagreeable, and unpleasant a chore as could be imagined. But I considered myself well paid with an approving word of encouragement from Mr. Moody.”
Following cleanup, Dwight would rush outside to drum up the pupils along with new boys and the girls who were also coming. If he needed to, Dwight would reason with children’s parents to permit them to come, and he would even wash and dress the youngsters if necessary.
Given the large numbers, it was imperative that the children be divided into classes. Again, Dwight pressed his friends into teaching the classes, telling them they would be teaching “lambs.”
The school grew to six hundred students. Dwight appointed a banker friend, Isaac Burch, as superintendent, and later gave the position to his friend John Farwell. But he himself was the one in charge. Each of the children thought of Dwight as their personal friend.
THE SCHOOL GREW TO SIX HUNDRED STUDENTS.
After being gone on a lengthy trip, he wrote one of his brothers, “I shall expect to have a good time next Sunday when I get home, for I have been away some time now and the children are so glad to see me when I return. I think I have got the best school there is in the west; anyway, it is the largest school there is this side of N. York.” Only John Wanamaker had a bigger one; it was in Philadelphia.
“Full speed ahead” seemed to be the motto of Dwight’s life. The school—and his “scholars”—had brought a new impetus to his life. He had so much to do now that he knew what his mission was! But his heart filled with praise to God as he thought to himself: “How good You are, Lord; I just praise You for all You have done for me!” Now he wanted to return his gratitude to God by doing the one thing he knew to do. He had reached a few youngsters through the mission, but there were so many more to be reached!
Dwight confided to a friend the school made him think of those steamboats on the Mississippi that must either go fast or burst. His letters home reflected his constant movement and energy as he would scribble, “I am in a great hurry,” or, “I am in such a hurry tonight you must excuse me for not writing more this time I am in a hurry!” Dwight sensed there was scarcely time enough to do all that needed to be done.
Dwight didn’t consider himself able to speak or to teach. He believed his part was simply to round up as many youngsters as he could and let someone else do the speaking and teaching. But sometimes if no speaker came, he had to fill in. At first, the polish and length of contemporary sermons intimidated him; if a minister was present, Dwight became extremely nervous. Eventually he found himself able to talk to an audience of children.
Doing something he enjoyed doing, such as simply telling boys and girls Bible stories or talking about Bible characters as though they were someone living down the street, became easier and easier for Dwight. Before long, he desired to speak and to share. It was as though the love of God had welled up and begun to overflow, and the dam inside him had burst.
Everywhere Dwight went, he would begin to teach and preach about God’s love in Christ. Whether he was on a train and had a short layover where he could gather a small crowd, or in larger groups, he relished the opportunity to tell others what Christ had done in his life.
EVERYWHERE DWIGHT WENT, HE WOULD BEGIN TO TEACH AND PREACH ABOUT GOD’S LOVE IN CHRIST.
He had shared with many people by this time, but he yearned to go home and tell his family about Christ. In preparation, he wrote his brother George in November 1859, “You seame to think that there is some humbug about my coming home, but I think there is no dout but that I shall be to home next month with out fail if not in January shure.” Arriving in Northfield two months later, Dwight had issued fair warning to its Unitarian inhabitants that “there is nothing like the religion of Jesus Christ.”
Even Uncle Zebulon Allen expressed concern following Dwight’s trip home: “My nephew Dwight is crazy, crazy as a March hare. Cam on from Chicago last week for a flying visit. I had not seen him, but he drove into my yard this morning. You know how cold it was, and his face was as red as red flannel. Before I could say good morning, he shouted ‘Good morning, Uncle Zebulon, What are you going to do for Christ today?’ Of course, I was startled and finally managed to say, ‘Come in, Dwight, and we will talk it over.’ ‘No, I can’t stop, but I want you to think about it,’ and he turned the sleigh around and went up the hill like a streak of lightning. I tell you he is crazy.” Dwight left a mark on Northfield after that visit!
Not only Northfield felt the fire of this young evangelist. Everywhere Dwight went, he touched people for Christ. On one occasion, he spoke to a banker on the train about his need for salvation: “Did you ever think what a good heavenly Father we have to give us such a pleasant world to live in?” Dwight asked the stranger. The response, “Yes, indeed.”
Dwight: “Are you a Christian?”
The banker: “No.”
Dwight: “You are not a Christian? But you ought to be one at once. I get off at the next station. If you will kneel down right here, I will pray to the Lord to make you a Christian.”
“YOU ARE NOT A CHRISTIAN? BUT YOU OUGHT TO BE ONE AT ONCE.”
So they knelt, and Dwight prayed, and the banker prayed. At the train stop, Dwight called back to the banker, “Remember, my friend, now is the time to accept.”
In a daze, the banker shouted after him, “Tell me who you are!”
“My name is Moody.”
In Chicago sometime later, the banker, Mr. Reynolds, found out where Dwight held his meetings. As he entered the building, “the first thing I saw was a man standing up, with a few tallow candles around him, holding a boy, and trying to read to him the story of the prodigal son.”
Mr. Reynolds became one of Dwight’s staunch supporters, and he delighted in telling friends who were puzzled by his sudden conversion about the meeting on the train with Dwight Moody. He also invited Dwight to come to the country to speak to some people there.
Since Dwight now worked on a part-time commission basis and earned nearly as much as he had before, he had more time to accept opportunities such as that of Reynolds’. He would have been content to continue to finance his Christian endeavors with his own money had God not intervened through one of his mission teachers.
On a beautiful June day in 1860, Dwight was working in his office at Buell, Hill, and Granger when the door suddenly swung open and a pale young man staggered in. Without saying a word, he threw himself down on some nearby boxes.